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And in the [13th Age] there arose powerful Icons

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By the way, The Bestiary 2 is out. It's got 3 Fallen Icons, some really cool creatures like Coin filled zombies, Nymphs, Koruvu (The Kaiju of the Iron Sea), and Owlbears! It's so far really good and the Fallen Icons are interesting because they aren't full monsters but like Stages of their forms (Someone was reading Angry GM, I believe) but still, it's so good.

Reading the Bestiary 2, they have changed up mooks a bit. They now seem to have abilities that are linked to being a mob, like there are these Kobold Berserkers that start off as a small mook squad of 4, when one dies, you roll a d20+how many Kobold Berserkers have died this battle. If you roll 6+, one of the Kobolds evolve into a normal monster (although with lower than normal health) and at a 16+ turns into an even stronger monster. There are Ghosts that gain a +1 to attacks and damages for each mook still alive and more stuff like that. It's interesting as it makes mooks more than small pricks with shared health. It's a welcomed addition to the game and I want to try to retrofit some of the old mooks with something similar.

There is the Forest That Walks, who is the spirit of a former High Druid that has become a whole forest and something has awoken him, The Golden King, a former Dwarf King whose greed and desire to raise the Dwarven Empire threatens all, and the Great Ghoul, a not-a-Lich King that gained power on eating the dead, and would cause events to happen to keep corpses flowing for his meal.

Just from random browsing there is also potentially the Purple Dragon. I think one of the possible origins for them have them arising as a just flat out new Icon dealing with dreams, crystals, illusions and psionics. That's like one of a dozen potential things for them though.

Best part of the fluff is that it's really multiple choice at times. Like when you look at the Purple Dragon, who she is is basically one of six different things, all as equally possible and crazy as the others and even then it's more like rumors than anything concrete.

Yeah, they are basically built to be something that haunts your adventures and you have to take on aspects of their power and weaken them before you can kill them. They have a ton of abilities and taken down different parts of their power takes a few of their power away, but even then, they are still really strong. The Bestiary 2 has improved the game so much more than other things I seen for this game.

I was reading the Bestiary 2 today and the Battle Shades, creatures that rise up at sites of old battlefields to fight again and again, and I noticed they were talking about the Battlefield itself being a trap. Now, I loved 4E and it's grid combat because part of your battle planning involved traps, objects, walls, ect to make the fights not feel like they existed in a void. So the Battle Shade has this this thing that when the escalation die is at different points, the Battlefield can act like a monster when players hit a condition, including "At the start of a player's turn..." Or "Natural Even Miss..." And stuff happens. I think it solved one problem I've had with this game and that was how to make a gridless combat system feel as amazing as 4Es tactical.

So, I've been working on trying to get an opening dungeon designed for a campaign that I may eventually try running, and I was wondering if anyone would be willing to look over the encounters I have lined up and give me some comments? I have the first 2 of 4 levels planned. Also, its turning out really dungeon crawly, and I'm not sure if that's where I want to take it.

Do you plan on counting each floor as a milestone? That doesn't feel milestone-y to me but this is shorn of all narrative.

Remember in 13th Age pacing is 3-4 fights/challenges should lead to a significant accomplishment of some sort so the party can actually rest. You can short cut this a bit for various reasons but in the first exposure to the system I wouldn't. I would do the exact opposite and use it as an opportunity to beat them over the head with it.

Do you plan on counting each floor as a milestone? That doesn't feel milestone-y to me but this is shorn of all narrative.

Remember in 13th Age pacing is 3-4 fights/challenges should lead to a significant accomplishment of some sort so the party can actually rest. You can short cut this a bit for various reasons but in the first exposure to the system I wouldn't. I would do the exact opposite and use it as an opportunity to beat them over the head with it.

We've actually already played with the system a decent amount, and the distance between each floor is going to be considerable. I'm trying to go for a "city built on top of a city built on top of a city etc" aesthetic. I was hoping to be relatively gentle with the first floor, but end with a solidly difficult fight, to help set pacing and expectations for the others.

If I was you, I would make each floor basically a session worth of stuff. So the first floor would be human bandits who might be trying to tame the dire rats or the bats (Or one human, the Rat King, an insane hobo who speaks to rats and bats and controls them to attack the surface.) The next floor might be skeletons, and another story. Just make sure all the Icons your players pick have a stake in this Adventure. That's the main thing with 13th Age is remembering the Icons.

Do you plan on counting each floor as a milestone? That doesn't feel milestone-y to me but this is shorn of all narrative.

Remember in 13th Age pacing is 3-4 fights/challenges should lead to a significant accomplishment of some sort so the party can actually rest. You can short cut this a bit for various reasons but in the first exposure to the system I wouldn't. I would do the exact opposite and use it as an opportunity to beat them over the head with it.

We've actually already played with the system a decent amount, and the distance between each floor is going to be considerable. I'm trying to go for a "city built on top of a city built on top of a city etc" aesthetic. I was hoping to be relatively gentle with the first floor, but end with a solidly difficult fight, to help set pacing and expectations for the others.

Yeah, that sounds fine and with a little story dressing I think that can easily be made to feel significant.

If I was you, I would make each floor basically a session worth of stuff. So the first floor would be human bandits who might be trying to tame the dire rats or the bats (Or one human, the Rat King, an insane hobo who speaks to rats and bats and controls them to attack the surface.) The next floor might be skeletons, and another story. Just make sure all the Icons your players pick have a stake in this Adventure. That's the main thing with 13th Age is remembering the Icons.

Do you know what an actual Rat King is? It is creepy as fuck. Toss in some added intelligence/telepathy/rat control and you've got a great D&D minor boss dude.

My idea was that the party lives in a Utopian society, where it's always summer, and the sun never sets, but everything is slowly falling apart. Its imperceptibly slow to the citizens, and the "gods" don't much care, but as the party dives deeper and deeper into the catacombs they will notice that each level is more opulent and of finer craftsmanship than the one above it. At the end of the catacombs they will find the other three season's ritually sealed away, and the Queen of Summer stretched out in ritual sacrifice, bleeding, which is where the "gods" get their power from. The party can then choose to re-up the seal, or free the other seasons, which will correspond to the continuation of the campaign, and their first level up. Then they have to traverse the other three seasons, convince each of the seasons to agree to fall back into equilibrium, and then kill the "gods" who started all of this.

Opening Crawl

This is the Age of Gods. Summer has lasted 1,000 years (a nonsensical statement, the sun doesn’t set, the seasons don’t change, time is a lie). Humanity has prospered. Hunger is a matter of historical inquiry. War is a bedtime story to scare children. A few dissidents mewl about “the status quo”, but the status quo is good. This world is a communist utopia, with benevolent gods leading the way, and a system of priests to guide each and every soul.

No longer the mythical turn of seasons, the daily failing of the sun, the long winter of little light, and even less food. All this the gods have given us, and in return, nothing is required of our lives. Merely that when our time is appointed, we travel to the holy city, there to join in the eternal choir.

Our gods overthrew the tyranny of nature, cast out the night, and lifted humanity to a height not yet seen.

Ok, but even in an Utopian society, there are people who have more power than others, maybe not officially but people look for leaders. So you might have a Sun Priest as an Icon, a Warren as another. You might have a guy who wants to restore night and runs a cultist group. Then each icon has interest in the dungeon below the city. Maybe that's the cities main source of food and materials. Then you have a corporation type person as an Icon. And so on and so forth. Icons help flesh your world out and you don't have to use the default Icons or even 13 of them.

Oooo, a mysterious new campaign! I am excited! Make sure you insist on a set schedule, not having one has really killed the one I was running after you left. I'm still going to try to breath some life into it, but I highly suggest not making my mistake.

Oooo, a mysterious new campaign! I am excited! Make sure you insist on a set schedule, not having one has really killed the one I was running after you left. I'm still going to try to breath some life into it, but I highly suggest not making my mistake.

We'll see if I ever get my plumbing fixed, and my house put back together, and if my daughter ever settles in to a sleeping schedule.

My idea was that the party lives in a Utopian society, where it's always summer, and the sun never sets, but everything is slowly falling apart. Its imperceptibly slow to the citizens, and the "gods" don't much care, but as the party dives deeper and deeper into the catacombs they will notice that each level is more opulent and of finer craftsmanship than the one above it. At the end of the catacombs they will find the other three season's ritually sealed away, and the Queen of Summer stretched out in ritual sacrifice, bleeding, which is where the "gods" get their power from. The party can then choose to re-up the seal, or free the other seasons, which will correspond to the continuation of the campaign, and their first level up. Then they have to traverse the other three seasons, convince each of the seasons to agree to fall back into equilibrium, and then kill the "gods" who started all of this.

Opening Crawl

This is the Age of Gods. Summer has lasted 1,000 years (a nonsensical statement, the sun doesn’t set, the seasons don’t change, time is a lie). Humanity has prospered. Hunger is a matter of historical inquiry. War is a bedtime story to scare children. A few dissidents mewl about “the status quo”, but the status quo is good. This world is a communist utopia, with benevolent gods leading the way, and a system of priests to guide each and every soul.

No longer the mythical turn of seasons, the daily failing of the sun, the long winter of little light, and even less food. All this the gods have given us, and in return, nothing is required of our lives. Merely that when our time is appointed, we travel to the holy city, there to join in the eternal choir.

Our gods overthrew the tyranny of nature, cast out the night, and lifted humanity to a height not yet seen.

What's the PCs' motivation for unlocking the other seasons? The short summary hasn't really sold me on "eternal summer is bad." "Imperceptibly slow decline" might be tough to get across. I assume you're intending to invert the more typical "everything is gloomy and winter" scenario, but I don't know that as a player I would make the connection of "things are more opulent the further we delve" -> "we should overthrow the summer-only regime."

You might want to have a backup plan for "the other seasons are breaking free of their prison as you arrive" and/or "something you did accidentally broke the seal" just in case the PCs aren't on board with your plan.

My idea was that the party lives in a Utopian society, where it's always summer, and the sun never sets, but everything is slowly falling apart. Its imperceptibly slow to the citizens, and the "gods" don't much care, but as the party dives deeper and deeper into the catacombs they will notice that each level is more opulent and of finer craftsmanship than the one above it. At the end of the catacombs they will find the other three season's ritually sealed away, and the Queen of Summer stretched out in ritual sacrifice, bleeding, which is where the "gods" get their power from. The party can then choose to re-up the seal, or free the other seasons, which will correspond to the continuation of the campaign, and their first level up. Then they have to traverse the other three seasons, convince each of the seasons to agree to fall back into equilibrium, and then kill the "gods" who started all of this.

Opening Crawl

This is the Age of Gods. Summer has lasted 1,000 years (a nonsensical statement, the sun doesn’t set, the seasons don’t change, time is a lie). Humanity has prospered. Hunger is a matter of historical inquiry. War is a bedtime story to scare children. A few dissidents mewl about “the status quo”, but the status quo is good. This world is a communist utopia, with benevolent gods leading the way, and a system of priests to guide each and every soul.

No longer the mythical turn of seasons, the daily failing of the sun, the long winter of little light, and even less food. All this the gods have given us, and in return, nothing is required of our lives. Merely that when our time is appointed, we travel to the holy city, there to join in the eternal choir.

Our gods overthrew the tyranny of nature, cast out the night, and lifted humanity to a height not yet seen.

What's the PCs' motivation for unlocking the other seasons? The short summary hasn't really sold me on "eternal summer is bad." "Imperceptibly slow decline" might be tough to get across. I assume you're intending to invert the more typical "everything is gloomy and winter" scenario, but I don't know that as a player I would make the connection of "things are more opulent the further we delve" -> "we should overthrow the summer-only regime."

You might want to have a backup plan for "the other seasons are breaking free of their prison as you arrive" and/or "something you did accidentally broke the seal" just in case the PCs aren't on board with your plan.

Yeah, having a hard time collating all my thoughts, because I tend to spread them out into multiple word files. Its going to be heavily hinted at that people past "the prime of their life" are ritually sacrificed to maintain the power of summer, everything is a strict caste system with no socioeconomic mobility, and at the bottom they are going to find out that the ebb and flow of seasons has been disrupted, with power initially consolidated under summer, but it leaks back to the other seasons, which have been building power sort of like a static charge, and the party needs to collect that power to avoid a massive blowout. After they collect Spring/Fall/Winter, they will be given the choice of maintaining eternal summer, restoring the natural order of seasons, or saying f it, and throw everything into chaos. Each season they collect makes the remaining seasons stronger, so no matter which direction they choose it will scale with them.

Edit: Or they can choose to not chase the seasons and let everything implode, and I'll come up with some sort of post apocalypse story line that Gaston will hate. Or Tiamat will return to the world, conquer death, and use humanities souls as a Kardashev 1 level battery for interstellar domination... I think I need more coffee...

One I saw had spells broken down into Blasts, Curses, and Hexes. Blasts are straight damage, Curses are single-target mostly effect spells, and Hexes are more utility/area spells. I thought that was neat, but would just give them the one single Eldritch Blast and probably change the spell types to Hexes and Invocations.
Pact was a class feature and you basically chose from any icon except for the dragons, the Emperor, or the Dwarf. All the others are available to choose from and you get a 1/battle effect, with a feat chain. I liked that but would add to the class feature that you have to spend one of your Icon dice on your Patron.

Talents were basically what you'd expect based on Warlock Invocations in D&D. One was Hexblade that gave you better melee damage and let you use I think Con for melee attacks instead of Str. Since I was thinking of dropping Blasts as a whole, I'd probably have a bunch of Talents modify Eldritch Blast the way some Invocations can. Would definitely have the Warlock gain extra Talents. Although I think the only classes they currently do that are classes that don't really get anything like spellcasting, but someone else may wanna confirm that?

All in all I think it's a good start but I'd want to play around with it a bit more. I really hope the next supplement they do has at least a couple more of the more common classes in it. So far they've been pretty good at preventing bloat.

I want to just give them the power Warlock's Curse. The idea is that all warlock magics work on fundamentally not-good juju. Yes you may have gained your power by signing a pact with the High Druid, but your magic is still fundamentally not super happy fun time stuff!

So I was thinking of doing that, and having it be 1/battle, ranged, quick action, 1 nearby enemy - the target is cursed and takes additional damage equal to (ability modifier probably) whenever you hit or miss the target with an attack. This effect lasts until the end of the encounter or until the enemy dies.

With a probably champion tier feat that allows you to change the target once per battle when the current target dies.

(I've got some other stuff planned, just asking about that specific idea on its own).

Haven't seen it yet and only have a vague knowledge of the setting. Reviews are saying you do need 13th Age core to use 13G, so that's ... a thing. I dunno how I feel about given that the Glorantha book is $28 for just the PDF. At +450 pages, I feel like it should be all-inclusive, though I guess it just does that much to flesh out the setting.

Glorantha in general is interesting but ultimately not a setting I feel like I'd want to engage with. I guess it's one of the oldest settings in TT? And apparently there's metric fucktons of lore that might beat out Forgotten Realms unless you count all the novels (again, apparently).

The new classes and new class options for 13A classes is always nice, and having them be designed to work for Glorantha but ultimately compatible with 13A is always good. Apparently there's two new races as well.

In general the Runes are interesting, and I might like them more than the Icons, if only because they're generic forces of nature and can help shape a philosophy/worldview, and it cuts out any potential issues that might arise from uberNPCs being the ones actually in charge.

Overall I'd say it's interesting, and I'm glad to see the 13th Age mechanics and system get more coverage, but the setting specifically doesn't super appeal to me, personally.

Book of Demons is out! It includes a new class! I haven't had a chance to pick it up yet but I'm excited for it.

Reportedly the Demonologist is a lot like the Druid by way of "build your own class" style, which I really, really loved about the Druid and I hope there's a solid future for that style of class building in RPGs.

For those who liked that style and enjoyed the 3.x system you may wanna check out Legend RPG, it has a general feel of each class having access to a series of "tracks" that give it a similar style.

So I'm working on creating my own setting, with new Icons and everything. I want to include the Shifter race from 4e, however I'm having difficult thinking of anything fun and dramatic to do with their powers. I was hoping for suggestions!

Here is what I have, basically a directly adaption of the 4e version. I like the idea of them getting stronger when they are staggered, but these are kinda bland.